Date: September 26, 2023
Time: 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
Location: 432 Newell Drive, Gainesville, FL, 32611
Host: Department of CISE
Admission: Free

Biography:
Neha Rani is a 6th-year Ph.D. student in the CISE department at the University of Florida. She received her master’s in CISE from UF in 2020 and a bachelor’s in computer science from Birla Institute of Technology, India. She is passionate about teaching and has been a TA for graduate and undergraduate-level courses such as Advanced Data Structures, Software Engineering, and Distributed Operating Systems. She has mentored multiple undergraduate and graduate students in research. Her research interest and dissertation work lie in the HumanComputer Interaction area, particularly in supporting education through technology. She has worked on multiple topics, such as wearable technology to support situated learning, everyday curiosity-based learning, and exploring trust in context-aware recommender systems in education

Abstract:
Computer Science is a lucrative career path that attracts students from diverse backgrounds. Data Structure forms the core of computer science and understanding computing. Developing a clear understanding of it is essential for building a foundation for any Computer Science graduate and undergraduate. The data structure also provides students an opportunity to implement coding for a computing problem and understand memory and computing costs. My talk will have two main parts. In the first half of my talk, I will discuss a fundamental data structure called a Binary search tree. I will also demonstrate some of my teaching principles, such as teaching by example and student involvement. In the second half of the talk, I would share my teaching philosophy and how I envision implementing it in the courses I teach. I would discuss student engagement, group activities, practice-based assignments, and inclusive classroom culture. I will wrap up my talk by sharing my experiences, which have carved my teaching philosophy.